War Tales

This page showcases stories and personal accounts of the members of A Company, 158th Assault Helicopter Battalion (Ghost Riders).

TO ALL GHOST RIDERS! Please, PLEASE send me your recollections so that they can be posted here and enjoyed by all viewers!

The Pentagon recently found it had too many pilots and offered an early retirement bonus.

They promised any pilot who retired straight away his full annual benefits plus $10,000 for every inch measured in a straight line between any two points on the pilot's body, with the pilot getting to select any pair of points he wished.

The first pilot accepted. He asked the pension man to measure from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. Six feet.
He walked out with a check of $720,000.

The second pilot asked them to measure from the tip of his outstretched hands to his toes. Eight feet. He walked out with a check for $960,000.

Meanwhile, the first pilot had tipped off a third.

When the third pilot was asked where to measure, he told the pension man:
"From the tip of my penis to the bottom tip of my testicles."

The pension man said that would be fine but that he'd better get the medical officer to do the measuring. The medical officer attended and asked the pilot to drop 'em. He did. The medical officer placed the tape on the tip of the pilot's penis and began to work back.

"My God!" he said. "Where are your testicles?"

The pilot replied, "In Vietnam."

TALE #4 - An Appreciation from a Grunt
My name is John Moran, I was with HHC 2/506 on Ripcord. I rode off Ripcord with a GHOSTRIDER who had big pink ribbons tied to the machine gun mounts. Later in the afternoon we were at the 2/506 Headquarters area around Snoopy, when I saw them again at the fueling depot, just the other side of the big landing area. I drove over with some beer and thanked them again. I was wondering who the crew was and what happened to them?
...I was with Alpha Co. 2/506 Aug 69 my first night at Evans with the Co. There were several new guys with me. We were with Lt Steve Wallace, all sitting around getting help from the guys who had been in country for a while. It was question and answer time, we were leaving in the morning. I asked, do the choppers always come and get you? Someone answered, "Yes". I asked again, no matter what? There was general laughing because they saw I was concerned. The same guy answered, "No matter what, they always come and get us out". Then a guy in the back, his nickname was Casper, shouted, "And if your really, really in serious trouble and it's lookin bad the GHOSTRIDERS will come and get you, those guys got big balls. Otherwise you won't see them".
So for almost a year I never saw a GHOSTRIDER, until I was running out of the TOC at Ripcord on 23Jul70. I was last in line as I crossed those few feet to the chopper I noticed several things in a split second. The door gunners had big pink ribbons tied to the guns stanchions, all the doors seemed to be gone, the pilot was watching me and right behind his head, painted on the chopper was a horse rearing up and the grim reaper holding a scythe. Six guys boarded that chopper in 1 second, the helicopter went hard to port and we were off the top of Ripcord and picking up speed as we went down the side and over the trees. None of that mattered, we were safe, I was riding with a GHOSTRIDER, finally, ,it was then that I realized that we must be in really, really in serious trouble and it's lookin bad. We landed away from the main pad at 2/506, I think because we took a hit. So almost 34 years later that's how I remember it. I hope they made it OK. There just aren't enough words to describe how brave the helicopter pilots and crews are.
Thanks again John Moran

TALE #5 - An Appreciation from another Grunt
My drill sergeant was a former Marine grunt radioman in Vietnam and he told me this story...
They were under heavy enemy fire at an LZ waiting for extraction. He said there were two Marine hueys overhead circling out of range waiting for permission to go in, which was continually denied, and their casualties were mounting. The platoon leader kept calling for the ships to come in but their "6" kept denying it because it was too hot. He said all of a sudden he heard some kid's voice with callsign Ghostrider tell them to get ready he was coming in, and in a flash he saw an Army 101st huey come in basically at treetop level, plop down, load up and start extracting under fire. He said he remembered seeing what looked like 19 yr old "wobbly one" at the controls. He decided then and there that the Marines were wusses and the Army aviatiors had the biggest cojones in the world, especially this Ghostrider. Years later I learned that my uncle's unit was called the Ghostriders.
Thanks,
John Wayne Mink

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